Bellingham Safety Officials Aim to Be Age & Dementia Friendly
By David Dunbar
“Dementia is our biggest challenge,” says Bellingham Police Chief Ken Fitzgerald. “More training is needed, so when officers respond to an emergency, they know whether they’re dealing with someone suffering from dementia or a younger person in crisis.”
The current effort in Bellingham for the town to become Age & Dementia Friendly will help to provide that kind of training, plus much more.
The Age & Dementia Friendly Task Force, of which Chief Fitzgerald is a member, is working on multiple fronts with the priority of getting an effective, affordable community-wide assessment of what’s needed most.
The goal, says Patty Sullivan who stepped away as the Massachusetts Council on Aging’s (MCOA) lead contact last month, “is to make Bellingham a great place to grow up and grow old.”
The MCOA has identified “Nine Domains of Livability” for attention. They are transportation, housing, public safety, outdoor spaces and buildings, services, civic participation and employment, social inclusion and participation, access and equity, and communication, information, and technology.
The work of the Task Force is to figure out what town residents need in each of these “Domains” and then make changes.
This is where the community assessment comes in. It will be a comprehensive survey that could take months and should produce actionable results.
Fire Chief William Miller, a member of Bellingham’s Age & Dementia Friendly Task Force, is planning a series of meetings with town seniors. He says, “There will be one at Wrentham Manor, another at Depot Court, and a third at the Senior Center.” What is learned from these meetings will inform a plan of action.
Among other things, these meetings are intended “to impress on seniors the need to call 911 before their problems get even worse.” He fears that “some seniors are afraid to call or that they don’t want to become a problem.” His department is working on developing a list of medical conditions that seniors could write down and post on their refrigerators to help inform responders.
Police Chief Fitzgerald explains another dimension of the dementia challenge. “People are in denial, or they just don’t know the problem, or they don’t care. So, it’s difficult for us to know how to respond most effectively.” He likes the idea of a dementia registry that would contain contact information of those affected.
The MCOA’s Patty Sullivan said there are several dementia training programs that are free for towns and their departments including schools and public safety. More information is available on the MCOA website.
Along with dementia at the top of Chief Fitzgerald’s list of priorities is elder abuse. “We have lots of resources that people can connect with if they want to.” Elder abuse can take multiple forms; there’s physical abuse, but also mental and emotional abuse.
At the Senior Center on Tuesday, August 13 at 11:30 a.m., the Bellingham Police Department will offer an illuminating and surprising look at elder abuse. Bring your questions and please call (508) 966-0398 to reserve your seat.
To learn more about the MCOA’s dementia-friendly initiative, part of Dementia Friendly America (https://dfamerica.org ), visit
(For more information about the town’s effort to become Age & Dementia Friendly, please contact Task Force Co-chair Kay Page at the number above.)
